This is a very important question. I like the way it is worded but for some reason I don’t like the idea of digital empathy. I ask myself is empathy different from digital empathy? If so, how so? If not, why not? My gut feeling on this is that empathy is both social (hence learned) and genetic (adaptively evolutionary survival trait). The “digital” part is a smaller part of that social and genetic adaptation. And I do believe as we push toward 10 billion people on the planet we had better get better with empathy and we’d better use every channel we can find to adapt to our crowded, hot planet. That’s why I am so glad to see you discussing it and addressing it with your students.